The Wandering Jew — Complete eBook

“Do you mean that you are proud of the alteration
in your features, because you are proud of the sufferings
of your heart?” said M. de Montbron, looking
at Adrienne with attention. “Be it so; I
am then right. You have some sorrow. I persist
in it,” added the count, speaking with a tone
of real feeling, “because it is painful to me.”

“Be satisfied; I am as happy as possible—­for
every instant I take delight in repeating, how, at
my age, I am free—­absolutely free!”

“Yes; free to torment yourself, free to be miserable.”

“Come, come, my dear count!” said Adrienne,
“you are recommencing our old quarrel.
I still find in you the ally of my aunt and the Abbe
d’Aigrigny.”

“Yes; as the republicans are the allies of the
legitimists—­to destroy each other in their
turn. Talking of your abominable aunt, they say
that she holds a sort of council at her house these
last few days, a regular mitred conspiracy. She
is certainly in a good way.”

“Why not? Formerly, she would have wished
to be Goddess of Reason, now, we shall perhaps see
her canonized. She has already performed the first
part of the life of Mary Magdalen.”

“You can never speak worse of her than she deserves,
my dear child. Still, though for quite opposite
reasons, I agreed with her on the subject of your
wish to reside alone.”

“I know it.”

“Yes; and because I wished to see you a thousand
times freer than you really are, I advised you—­”

“To marry.”

“No doubt; you would have had your dear liberty,
with its consequences, only, instead of Mdlle. de
Cardoville, we should have called you Madame Somebody,
having found an excellent husband to be responsible
for your independence.”

“And who would have been responsible for this
ridiculous husband? And who would bear a mocked
and degraded name? I, perhaps?” said Adrienne,
with animation. “No, no, my dear count,
good or ill, I will answer for my own actions; to
my name shall attach the reputation, which I alone
have formed. I am as incapable of basely dishonoring
a name which is not mine, as of continually bearing
it myself, if it were not held in, esteem. And,
as one can only answer for one’s own actions,
I prefer to keep my name.”

“You are the only person in the world that has
such ideas.”

“Why?” said Adrienne, laughing. “Because
it appears to me horrible, to see a poor girl lost
and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become,
as they say seriously, the better half of the monster—­yes!
a fresh and blooming rose to become part of a frightful
thistle!—­Come, my dear count; confess there
is something odious in this conjugal metempsychosis,”
added Adrienne, with a burst of laughter.